


i couldn't bring myself to call except to call it quits

by vertigo



Category: DCU (Comics), Red Hood/Arsenal (Comics)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Makeup Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-04
Updated: 2016-08-04
Packaged: 2018-07-29 09:45:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7679596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vertigo/pseuds/vertigo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I’ve been missing you, you know? As much as I love pizza, nothing compares to reheated alambre in the morning. Or just scrambled eggs and—"</p>
            </blockquote>





	i couldn't bring myself to call except to call it quits

**Author's Note:**

> i wanted to make myself sad but halfway through it i decided that they deserve to be happy ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

It’s 2:16 am, 2:17: am and counting when the phone rings, the unmistakable shriek of a generic ringtone echoes in the mostly empty bedroom. It’s the unmistakable number he’s been avoiding ever since the inevitable breakup.

 

The ringing stops, but the sound still lingers in his mind, a short lived cheery tune that loops itself after every twenty seconds—and it was the soundtrack of his last five nights. For a former fearless bird, Jason Todd is too much of a coward to pick it up. He doesn’t fear for his life, but he fears the inevitable crumble of walls that can follow if he picks up the phone.

 

It’s 2:19 am when the phone flashes again, one new voicemail waiting to be heard among the twelve other messages. The way he pushes play on this new message feels like a bless and a curse—he feels like a Pavlovian experiment: it will hurt him and yet nothing will feel as good as listening to that voice again.

_Saw you walking down the street today. It’s good to see that you’re eating well, but shouldn’t you be in bed? You were limping, maybe a bad fall? Can’t you ask for people to deliver—Oh you can’t._

_I’ve been missing you, you know? As much as I love pizza, nothing compares to reheated alambre in the morning. Or just scrambled eggs and—_

It’s 2:21 am and the phone screams again, this time he picks up, “ _Jay…_?” But the silence lingers on, setting like dust over the small space of his room. There isn’t any kind of talk, just plain old silence as he gets used to the sound of breathing on the other side of the line. Jason inhales and exhales until their breaths come in sync. The former Robin gets up—he’s sure that Roy can listen clearly to the sounds of his footsteps, the creaking of old floorboards and the whisper of the curtains.

 

He hears the sound of rustling sheets, nail-biting and the ups and downs of the redhead’s leg as he gets restless. Silence and distance never fit the archer—the stage three clinger that wormed his way into his life and made a home between his ribs. “ _Are you still there?”_ His answer is the dry click of a lighter—the rusty zippo that had seen better days and struggles to light up a cancer stick. “ _I guess you don’t want to talk and that’s great, I need you to listen._ ” And the silence lingers on—broken sporadically by the exhale of a long plume of smoke.

 

“ _Remember the first time we kissed? I was so excited, I still wore that stupid uniform and you had those scaly greens and pixie boots. In retrospect I want to smack Ollie and B in the face for letting us go out like that. We were so ridiculous and naïve, but you smelled like sweat and Marlboro and tasted like nicotine and bubblegum.  You had the line and the hook and you got me._ ”

 

Jason remembers clearly, the spur-of-the-moment victory kiss—just another victory for the sidekick team, celebrated with a quick smack of lips that left them both grinning like idiots. Was that what love felt like? Being high on endorphins and smiling so much that his cheeks hurt? He never got the chance to find out.

 

“ _Then you were gone for the first time. I was so angry, I thought… I thought it was me who drove you away… I thought you decided that I was a worth-for-nothing sidekick, just like everyone else thought back then. That I was Ollie’s shadow, maybe just his pet. And when I’ve learned about what happened… Jay… Jay I couldn’t breath, I reached the rock bottom. There was no place left to shoot. I was sleeping the whole day, if you could call toss and turn in my bed having dreams of you being… Then I couldn’t sleep anymore, I would fight it, I didn’t want to dream about you and I didn’t want to be awake without you…”_

 

His fingers trembled—must be the effect of the cold winds blowing south.

 

“ _The king’s son, Ferdinand, with hair up-staring—then, like reeds, not hair—was the first man that leaped, cried, Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”_

 

Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act 1, Scene 2. Jason holds his breath, remembering all the books Roy mauled with his greasy fingers, all the tiny flowers he pressed between the pages and the way he would always cackle in the afternoons when The Winter’s Tale was laying in their living room—he’d gone as far as highlighting “ _Exit, pursued by a bear”._  And just that—the image of daisies between yellowed pages, dog-ears that still persists in his books and feet on his lap is enough to knock the breath he was holding out of his lungs, twisting his guts in an agony he’d been avoiding for so long.

 

“ _I remember how much you loved every book, I read them all, I’d go to therapy then read it, maybe I could find you between the pages, maybe I could bring you back. At nights when my arms itched and my fingers were raw from biting and my teeth would chatter I’d think of you. How maybe, just maybe, we were fated to something more than the new face of failure. A robin that wouldn’t sing and an archer that couldn’t shoot. How pathetic we were. Those were the worst nights—the ones where I considered leaving and relapsing. Those were the nights where I’d smash everything within my reach and had to be restrained. Until the next morning where I would feel ashamed. One day I promised myself that if you couldn’t be here, then I’d live for both of us.”_

 

The vigilante feels the cold biting of the zippo against his hand—he also feels how his index and thumb click open and close the lid of the lighter, as if it was the only thing grounding him to his room, the only reminder that he needed not to crumble. “ _Then you were back. You’ve clawed your way out of hell, you weren’t the same boy I’ve met, but you became the man that I fell in love with. You always understood, you knew that we had something lurking, a beast waiting to come out and you embraced it. You taught me how to be a better man, that I shouldn’t fear what haunts me… Remember the second time we kissed?”_

 

Of course he remembers—Jason remember longing for that man, feeling his hands itch every time Kori left her marks over Roy’s body– and of course there were plenty of times when Kori called him to join them in bed, he’d accepted some, just because of the **damn** temptation. Because they were irresistible and he would repeat to himself that it was just for fun, just a way to pass the time, just a way to bond. But in fact Jason was stealing those moments, searing them both in his mind when they were the most vulnerable). And the first time he had Roy all to himself—their teeth clashed and they had to stop to laugh like teenagers (“We better start looking for a better dental insurance if this is becoming a thing.” Roy said, still clinging to his jacket.).

 

Jason knows that his silence is enough of an answer—he knows that Roy knows that he is smiling at the receiver.

 

“ _Then came the other times, then you left for the second time. But you came back. I knew that you would. Not because I’m the better kisser alive. But because you are my half. Because without you something is missing, because without you my fingers itch. And then you decided to leave again. I’m not going to be an asshole and ask you what makes you think that you’re the best person to tell me what I want or what I need… Because… Truth to be told? You are.”_

The cigarette is all but gone, just an ember burning his fingers and promptly smashed against a too-full ashtray. He knows that Roy has always craved for something—love, and always found it in the worst places: drugs, booze and Jason. He is poison to that archer, Jason is the weed marring a perfect garden, the ugly stain in a satin shirt.

 

The silence lingers on. They’ve gone back to matched breaths and small twitches over the phone.

 

“ _…I guess this is all I have to say, Jay.”_

“Do you remember what I said to you after our second kiss?”

 

His voice is rusted, as if he just clawed his way out of that damn coffin—mouth full of dirt and blood. The silence now rests in the other side of the line—and it feels wrong.

 

“I pray you, do not fall in love with me, for I am falser than vows made in wine.”

 

Roy laughs—but its wrong, it’s a choked laughter, coming from a dying man still fighting for his life. It sounds as if Jason is a siren, holding him under the surface of an unruly ocean. “ _And that was a lie. That was always a lie. I could see it, Jay._ ”

 

“How?”

 

“ _I could see it in the nights when you were too mad at me for spending all of our money. I could see it in the light of day when you were struggling to find the right words in English and you creased your brown and bit your lip. I could see it in your eyes when you took off your helmet and they were green and you thought they were an ugly reminder of the pit._ ”

 

Jason clenches his fists, the rusty old zippo protesting under the weight of his fingers.

 

“ _I miss you. I miss waking up by your side. I miss you pulling my hair in a stupid manbun because you hated when it hit your face when you were sleeping. I miss the way you’d tell me that I’m gross in the mornings, but still kissed me when our breath smelled and tasted like shit. I miss how you’d remind me to eat and to take a shower whenever I fell too deep into a project…”_

And Jason? Jason misses the way Roy would fit perfectly against him in their bed, how he would purr whenever he was having a good dream. He misses the steady heartbeat and kissing his neck—how graceful Roy was when handling small parts and a welder.

 

The silence comes back, broken by speeding cars and cyclists. The silence lingers between rushed footsteps. It still lingers when the old rusty fire escape creaks and moans under his boots.

 

It still lingers as he pushes up the window to Roy’s room and knocks him down with a kiss. “I’m no good for you, Harper.” Jason breathes between their rushed kiss, phones forgotten on the floor still counting the minutes of their call. Roy’s hands reaches his neck, tugs the black strands with enough force to rip some strands from their roots.

 

“I know.” That’s all the answer he gets before his jacket is pushed to the floor and his cold hands frame Roy’s ribs, pushing his shirt over his head—he shivers the way he always does, delirious and hungry for his touch. Their lips won’t part, can’t part—Jason has forgotten how good Roy tastes, how he loves that cheap cologne that _screams_ Arsenal—he has forgotten how well it goes with cordite and nicotine. “ _I fucking know and I don’t care._ ”

 

That’s all they need to shed the rest of their clothes, to make the archer’s knees hit the bed and fall back into it.  They don’t have enough time, but Jason makes himself reacquainted with the planes of his abs, traces it with his mouth, descending until he hits the cords of muscles in his thighs and marks the freckled skin with his teeth while his hands pushes the archer’s boxers out of the way. Roy’s whimpers and his fingers grabbing the black curls feels like heaven, like everything was right for the first time in a long while.

 

Jason mouths his cock, remembering how great he tastes as Roy moans for him, how amazing  the pressure of his nails biting into his shoulders feels, urging him to take his cock deeper. And he does just that, until the head is bumping the back of his throat and he sucks his way back up slowly as Roy hands him the lube in their well practiced dance. “Fuck Roy, I’ve missed you.” His voice is broken as the first finger enters the redhead and he just smiles, his callused fingers from too many years pulling the string of a bow tracing the former Robin’s cheek.

 

“I’ve missed you too, Jaybird.” Roy moans as a second finger stretches him, moves his hips to follow Jason’s fingers twisting inside him. “You’re an asshole, but I still love you.” He reaches out for Jason’s underwear, pushing it out of the way and into the floor. “Now hurry up before I go mad here.”

 

The brunette lubes his cock, reveling in the way that those green eyes follow his hand and how the tip of Roy’s tongue comes out to wet his lips before pearly teeth dig into the pinkish flesh as he sinks into a too familiar warmth. “Fuck Roy…”  Jason leans in, letting their foreheads touch for a brief second before their lips are chasing each other again and the time stands still, for just a few heartbeats there’s nothing in the world but their kisses and shared breaths. He moves slowly pulling out and pushing in until Roy’s calves are wrapped around his hips and his short nails are breaking his skin, urging him.

 

Jason kisses the corner of his mouth, following the jawline and driving into him. Roy just moans, dragging his nails over old scars on Jason’s back and leaving angry red welts in its wake while he’s lost in the sensation, arching his back when Jason hits the perfect angle and bites his neck in retribution.

 

Neither of them will last long, not with desperation and hunger consuming them with each thrust— they’re losing their rhythm, but they don’t care, the only thing Roy cares about is how good it feels to have Jason inside him again, forcing the moans out of his throat and the only thing Jason cares about is how perfect his fingers feel when digging bruises into Roy’s hips and how salty his neck tastes.

 

Roy comes untouched, Jason’s name on his lips and nails piercing  new angry red lines over Jason’s back and it only takes a few thrusts before Jason follows him, creating another purplish bruise against the archers neck.

 

The silence lingers again, broken by pants and peppered kisses.

 

“Don’t leave in the morning.” Roy says so reverently against his lips that it sounds almost like a prayer—and it might be.

 

“I won’t. Unless Dick or one of your friends kicks me out for having make-up sex at…Three in the morning?”

 

Roy’s eyes get comically huge while Jason snorts against his freckles.

 

“Shit.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> hit me up on http://beta-lactamase.tumblr.com/


End file.
